Exit polls: Livni's Kadima leads in 2009 elections  —  Exit polls by Israel's three main television stations on Tuesday night showed Kadima as the leader in the 2009 general elections, with Likud coming a narrow second.  —  Channel 1, Channel 2 and Channel 10 polling of voters as they left …

Fox passes off GOP press release as its own research — typo and all … During the February 10 edition of Fox News' Happening Now, co-host Jon Scott claimed that “the Senate is expected to pass the $838 billion stimulus plan — its version of it, anyway.  We thought we'd take a look back at the bill …

Why Obama's new Tarp will fail to rescue the banks  —  Has Barack Obama's presidency already failed?  In normal times, this would be a ludicrous question.  But these are not normal times.  They are times of great danger.  Today, the new US administration can disown responsibility for its inheritance; tomorrow, it will own it.

Administration Officials Met With Laughter At Bailout Briefing  —  Administration officials were greeted with sarcasm and laughter Monday night when they briefed lawmakers and congressional staff on Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner's new financial-sector bailout project, according to people who were in the room.

The Rorschach plan (wonkish, or at least hard to read)  —  An old joke from my younger days: What do you get when you cross a Godfather with a deconstructionist?  Someone who makes you an offer you can't understand.  —  I found myself remembering that joke when trying to make sense of the Geithner financial rescue plan.

Hillary's incredible, shrinking role  —  Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton is finding that her job description is dissolving under her feet, leaving her with only a vestige of the power she must have thought she acquired when she signed on to be President Obama's chief Cabinet officer.

The Stimulus Bills: House vs. Senate  —  If all goes as expected today, the Senate will pass an $838 billion economic stimulus plan that follows a compromise reached over the weekend.  But before the package can go to President Obama's desk, the Senate will have to resolve differences with the House and its $819 billion version.

Mr. Franken Comes to Washington  —  Entertainer Al Franken (D-Minn.) will spend the next two days in Washington readying himself to serve in the Senate, a move that comes even as the contested Minnesota Senate election plods on.  —  Franken arrives in town tonight and will be here through Thursday …

Eight arrested in Michael Phelps case  —  Updated:  —  COLUMBIA, SC (WIS) - New details have emerged about a party where Olympic champion Michael Phelps was spotted.  —  On Feb. 2, a British tabloid published a picture of the 14-time Olympic gold medalist using a water pipe to smoke marijuana.

“War of Northern Aggression”?  —  According to Republican State Rep. Bryan Stevenson, the proposed pro-choice “Freedom of Choice Act” is the biggest federal power grab since the “War of Northern Aggression.”  —  And I thought Scott Rupp was overly dramatic.

Iranian mob attacks moderate ex-president Mohammed Khatami on anniversary  —  Iran's former president was set upon by an angry stick-wielding mob today amid celebrations of the 30th anniversary of the Islamic Revolution on the streets of Tehran.  —  The attack on Mohammed Khatami came …

What happened to Clive Crook?  —  Clive used to be a reasonable guy; in his mind he probably still is a reasonable guy.  But he has misunderstood what it means to be reasonable.  He now apparently believes that it means declaring, in all circumstances, that Democrats and Republicans are equally …

Busy Sarah Palin Backs Out of CPAC; Rush Limbaugh Is Still Speaking  —  The opening-day headliner for the annual CPAC conservative convention February 26-28, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, has pulled out, citing state business in Juneau.  “We're obviously disappointed,” said a CPAC official.

Obama: ‘There Is No Easy Out’ for Wall Street  —  In Exclusive Interview, President Warns of ‘a Perfect Storm of Financial Problems’  —  On the same day his treasury secretary detailed a $2 trillion plan to stabilize the U.S. banking systems and the Senate narrowly passed …

Huckabee: Stimulus is ‘anti-religious’  —  Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee warned supporters Tuesday that the $828 billion stimulus package is “anti-religious.”  —  In an e-mail that was also posted on his blog ahead of the Senate's passage, Huckabee wrote: “The dust is settling …

Rahm Emanuel  —  WHAT a strange surname!  It appears Spanish, easy to pronounce, but it's not.  Never in my life have I heard or read about any student or compatriot with that name, among tens of thousands.  —  Where does it come from?  I wondered.  Over and over, the name came to mind …

Stocks Slide as New Bailout Disappoints  —  For investors, the government's sweeping new banking plan was simply not enough.  —  Stock prices fell sharply on Tuesday after Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner unveiled the government's latest efforts address the troubled banking system …

BLAGO, LIBBY PROSECUTOR TO STAY ON  —  From NBC's Pete Williams  —  Patrick Fitzgerald, the U.S. attorney in Chicago who brought criminal fraud charges against Rod Blagojevich, will be staying in his job in the Obama administration, even though he was appointed to the position by President George W. Bush.

GOP won't derail Solis on hubby  —  Republicans aren't going to derail Labor Secretary-nominee Hilda Solis' nomination over her husband's tax problems, but they still have serious reservations about her ties to labor unions.  —  Key Republican senators on the committee vetting …

Obama allies attack GOP leadership  —  The labor-backed, pro-stimulus group Americans United for Change and the public workers' union AFSCME are going up with a national cable spot, also airing in Washington D.C., with the sharpest attack yet on Republican leaders in the House and Senate.

The President Attacks a Republican Straw Man  —  President Obama, as we all know, made bipartisanship a central theme of his campaign last year.  Yet he was unable to pull in many Republicans on the stimulus bill.  In the wake of this, some have suggested that the President's bipartisan success will be in changing the tone.

Key Party Switch in Virginia?  (UPDATE: Report: Switch Averted)  —  A well-connected source in Virginia tells me that at least one Democratic state senator is leaving the party's caucus . . . “Not sure yet if he's going Republican or Independent.”  This is significant because the Democrats currently …

How The World Almost Came To An End At 2PM On September 18  —  LiveLeak has caught a scary moment of previously undisclosed insight by Paul Kanjorski where he reveals some facts that have not been captured by the media previously.  At 2 minutes and 20 seconds in the video below …

What do we do if the “two-state” solution collapses?  —  Lots of smart people have been focusing on the Israeli elections and trying to make sense of their immediate implications for the peace process.  I can't improve on the analyses provided by Glenn Greenwald, Yossi Alpher, Bernard Avishai …

They are as stupid as you think they are...even stupider  —  I am astonished to discover that the fundamentalist pastor Grant Swank has a new article in which he promotes the long discredited tale of Lady Hope and Darwin's death-bed conversion.  Unreal.  It is completely false …